escapee
by nathan-p
Summary: She's being held captive away from the world she longs to see. They're cruel to her here. There's no way out.
1. escapee

_let me out_

_let me out_

_please_

I can smell him from here; antiseptic and clean laundry, a hint of nervous sweat.

A pulse of electricity goes through the door, it slides open, and he steps inside.

Leather shoes, denim jeans, harsh soap, nutrient mush, and a faint trace of outdoors.

It's Hayes with my lunch.

(If you could call the mush they feed me "lunch". It has everything I need, but nothing that I crave.)

_isaac_

_isaac_

_open the lock_

I don't know how long I've been in this cage. It seems like forever. They said I'd been bad and had to be punished, but I don't know what I did.

I don't think I did anything.

I focus harder on Hayes.

_let me out let me out LET ME OUT_

But I can't hear anything coming back.

He pushes the bowl of mush through the food slot of my cage.

I push back at him.

_HAYES_

_HAYES LET ME OUT_

Acrid fear; his shoes tap away from me on the linoleum.

_COME BACK HERE AND LET ME OUT_

_PLEASE_

The door closes again and I'm alone.

I have no utensils; I dip my face into the bowl and eat. I'm hungry, but not for this.

I get all the vitamins and minerals I need from what they feed me, but no more.

I want a steak, a piece of salmon sashimi, a slice of ham.

I want double-chocolate cake, a souffle, a Jello salad.

I want an apple, an orange, a bowl of strawberries and cream.

I want all the things I smell on my captors, all the things I can see in their heads. I want to get out of here and taste the world.

I wipe my face clean, shove the bowl towards the food slot.

When I get out of here I want a cheeseburger and fries.

I fluff out my wings, their tips brushing against the bars of the cage. The feathers are dull and dirty. I need a bath, but I'm not allowed to the showers until Wednesday.

The colors are faded, but I know them by heart - dark brown near my sides and on the tops, the undersides white dashed with black. I run my fingers through them, aligning them with one another.

The muscles are weak. They don't exercise me much anymore. I have natural strength and stamina, but that doesn't count for much when I don't have the strength to hold my wings extended for more than ten minutes at a time.

I know that others have gotten out. I can smell it. I can hear it.

I can feel it in the strange electricity that pulses among the whitecoats and Erasers.

I smell animal musk and stale sweat and dried blood and anger.

The door opens again and Tag steps in, the latest Eraser assigned to me. He smells, specifically, bored. But mostly of Eraser.

He bends and takes the bowl from the food slot, reaching his paw-like hand inside my cage. I smell fresh blood on his clawed fingernails.

The bowl clangs on the counter and he unlatches the cage door.

I fold into myself, wings pressed tight against my body. I could fight. Just... not today.

"Come on, puppy," he growls. Strong hands curl around my shoulders and yank me forward, then up to stand. "On your feet."

_don't call me puppy_

When Markus, the other Eraser usually assigned to me, is angry, he calls me runt and bares his teeth.

Tag calls me puppy and ruffles my hair sometimes, disguised as a cuff.

I don't know which I hate more.

Tag's hand is rough on my arm as he steps out into the hallway.

"Don't try anything, pup."

I never do, not with Tag.

Markus is closer to my size, easier for me to fight.

Even with enhanced everything, I can't put up a fight against Tag.

The hallway smells different. They don't test me at all much anymore, and I rarely leave my little room.

Today, lemon-scented cleaner, unwashed feathers, alcohol. And something I don't recognize.

My legs wobble under me and my head whirls. I can't keep up with Tag at all.

The unfamiliar smell grows stronger. Tag strides down the hallway at a loping Eraser pace.

I can't do this.

* * *

><p>Guess the twist, win the Fair-Day goose.<p> 


	2. the dead and gone

They all have scars. You can't work here and come out clean.

The sadists wash in and out, if they make it past the interview. Some manage to hide it for a while. Most wear it as a badge of pride for however long they last.

It wears on you. Not all the monsters here wear lab coats - some suffer and scream in cages, or weep all night long in the wards.

It lives within you, too - if you work anywhere but the few computer blocks, you go home smelling like the place. Like disinfectant and blood and the dying. It washes out of clothing to a degree, but it never leaves the mind.

Most of the kind ones don't last long. They don't learn the laws: everything here wants you dead. You are only a symbol of pain, no matter your intentions. You are a target.

You are the enemy.

No one seems to last long here, even the ones who take it well. People die, by lab accident, by mauling, by choice.

The Erasers understand. When someone dies who has no family, nowhere else to go, there's always an Eraser at the funeral, standing silent, watching. They have each other to fall back on, and know keenly that it is cruel to be alone among the monsters.

Hayes is counting the hours until he can leave for the weekend. He has everything planned and packed at home. He's going to visit his grandchildren in San Francisco, take them to Alcatraz, buy them crab at the Wharf.

When they ask what Grampa does, like they always do, he's going to tell them, like he told their mother, that he's a weapons engineer. It's the most he can say. The most they would want to know if he could say more.

He checks his watch, shuffles the papers on his desk. Taggart should be here in the next few minutes. He's compulsively punctual, even for the anxious-to-please Erasers, and more clever than half the technicians Hayes has under him.

She'd seemed no longer symptomatic when he saw her - knew him when he entered, pushed out feebly for help - and he had better be right.

They needed her.

The door opened, and Taggart stepped inside, easy steps slowed by the burden he carried: the girl, limp in a hospital gown.

"Sorry, Doc," he muttered. "One minute she was okay, the next..."

"Is she alive?"

"Yeah." He bared a mouthful of predator's teeth, smiling. "You're a miracle worker."

"Don't flatter me, Taggart." He slipped the buds of his stethoscope into his ears, listened to her heart and lungs - heartbeat strong, breathing slow but healthy. No tachycardia, no moist rales, no mucus draining from the mouth and nose.

"All right." He plucked the buds from his ears, set the 'scope on the desk. "Take her to Third Ward, please. No more immune suppressants. We cut it too close this time, and I'd rather risk rejection than kill her." He glanced at her. "Make sure she gets a good meal when she wakes up, and don't hesitate to restrain her if she gets combative. The other ones don't remember anything. She might not either."

"And I'll tell Volkov you say hello," Taggart finished.

Hayes forced a grin - _Taggart, most of the others aren't just amnestic, they're dead, and it's spreading_ - and nodded. "Right you are."

He collapsed into his chair as the Eraser left, put his head in his hands.

Whether you came to hurt or to heal, they all slipped away; candles snuffed by dead air, trailing smoke.

The monsters followed you home.


End file.
